Photograph taken December 3, 1917, by H. Coates
]
There are really three masses, the largest already referred to being ten
feet eleven inches long, six feet nine inches high, and five feet two
inches thick. It was called Ahnighito after the name of the daughter of
the explorer. The next larger mass weighing about three tons was named
“The Woman,” because the shape suggested the idea of a woman seated on
the ground with a babe in her arms and a shawl around her shoulders. The
third and smallest mass weighing about 1,000 pounds, was called “The
Dog,” and the three meteorites were known as a group to the Eskimo under
the name of “Saviksue,” or “The Great Irons.”
The Woman and The Dog were visited by Peary in 1894, and were obtained
the following year after much difficulty and exciting work, an incident
of which was the breaking up of the cake of ice on which The Woman had
been ferried from the shore to the ship, just as the mass was about to
be hoisted aboard. Fortunately there was enough tackle around the
meteorite to prevent its loss. In 1895 Commander Peary visited
Ahnighito, which lay on an island only four miles from the two smaller
masses, but he could do little toward its removal. The next year he made
another voyage for the purpose of getting the Great Iron, but was again
unsuccessful. This third attempt was made in 1897, when the meteorite
was brought in safety to New York in the ship _Hope_.
In the Foyer collection is also the famous Willamette meteorite, which
weighs more than fifteen tons. Its height is over six feet, its width
four feet, and its length ten feet. It is one of the most interesting
meteoric fragments in the collection, though not the largest.
Nevertheless, its appearance tells a wondrous story of the experience it
must have had during its swift rush through the air. The deep hollows in
its surface were probably caused by friction with the particles
encountered during its swift flight through the atmosphere surrounding
our planet. This resulted in the melting of part of the metallic
substance of which it is composed, chemical analysis showing that it
contains an admixture of iron, nickel, a small amount of cobalt, and in
addition some phosphorus and sulphur. To give an idea of the depth of
the hollows, the curator of the Museum showed the writer a photograph of
two boys seated in two of the largest.
The Willamette was discovered in the autumn of 1902, in the forest about
nineteen miles south of Portland, by a Welsh miner named Ellis Hughes.
At first he thought he had discovered an iron mine, but on digging away
the earth surrounding it, he found that it was a meteorite.
The miner, who was well acquainted with the handling of such masses,
constructed a low wooden truck, on to which he managed to overturn the
fifteen-ton mass, and then, with no other motive power than an old horse
windlassing a rope round a capstan as a winch, which had to be moved and
reanchored as the truck with its load was drawn up to it, he and his
fifteen-year-old son, working so quietly during the winter that not even
the nearest neighbor suspected what they were doing, dragged the mass
three-quarters of a mile on to his own land.
Apparently this mass of iron was known before the discovery above
related, as an Indian relic, revered from time immemorial by the Siwash
Indians. When the Portland Land Company, who owned the land on which the
meteorite was found, instituted legal proceedings in the matter,
claiming the right of possession, the lawyer engaged by Ellis Hughes to
plead his cause was of the opinion that the meteorite was not “real
estate,” but “discarded personal property,” belonging to whoever might
find it. In support of this statement he called a very old Siwash Indian
as a witness, who testified that the mass of iron had long been known to
members of his tribe, who attributed to it magic virtue. As a youth, he
said, he had been conducted to it by one of the medicine-men, and
informed that if arrows were dipped in the water which collected in the
hollows they would always wing their way to the heart of the game shot
at. However, the judge ruled that the meteorite went with the land, and
an order was issued giving possession thereof to the Portland Land
Company. It was purchased later on by Mrs. William E. Dodge, and
presented to the Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Near the Willamette meteorite is one called the Canyon Diablo, famous
chiefly on account of the fact that it contains diamonds. It was found
in 1891, near Coon Butte, Arizona, in the neighborhood of the town of
Canyon Diablo. The original size of the mass is not known, but thousands
of fragments have been collected, varying in weight from a fraction of
an ounce up to 1,087 pounds. More than sixteen tons of this material are
said to have been found within a radius of two and a half miles of Coon
Butte, a conical hill rising from 130 to 160 feet above the surrounding
plain, and containing a crater-like hollow about three-quarters of a
mile in diameter and probably originally 1,460 feet deep. The appearance
of this region seems at first sight, to the casual visitor, far more
suggestive of a terrific explosion at a remote period of the past,
resulting in an upheaval causing the vast crater from which the
meteoritic-looking masses scattered over the surrounding plain had been
ejected, but Dr. Hovey is of the opinion that their presence has been
caused by the downfall of an immense meteorite from above. According to
his investigations of the scene, “there is no lava of any kind in Coon
Butte or in its immediate vicinity, such as is found in volcanic
regions.” He also asserts that the main part of the mass has not yet
been discovered, the fragments so far found being only the portions
separated from the original mass during its passage through the
atmosphere and at the time of its impact with the earth. There are two
fragments of the Canyon Diablo meteorite in the Foyer collection, and
the largest piece discovered is the one weighing 1,087 pounds, to which
reference has already been made. A slice of the meteorite, in which a
diamond was found, undoubtedly attracts the greatest amount of attention
from visitors to the museum. “Diamonds falling from the sky,” they have
been heard to remark, “then why not make a search for the missing
fragment which may be a depository of unknown wealth?” However, the
possibilities are that it has buried itself to such a depth in its crash
to earth, that a search for it would be a stupendous undertaking, with
possibly no results as far as diamonds are concerned.
The importance attached to the discovery of diamonds in the Canyon
Diablo meteorite hinges upon the well-known fact that the diamond is the
purest carbon in nature. Charcoal is almost pure carbon, and, as
everyone knows, common charcoal is the product of combustion, the
residue from the burning of a piece of woody tissue excluded from the
air. This is the everyday teaching of chemistry in the college
laboratory. According to Dr. Hovey, regarding the fact that the Canyon
Diablo meteorite contains diamonds, “This gem-stone diamond has been
definitely proved to occur in only two meteorites, the other being a
Russian fall, although many masses are known to contain carbon in the
form of a soft, black powder.” The discovery of diamonds in Canyon
Diablo was made in 1891, by Professor G. A. Koenig of Philadelphia, and
was afterward confirmed by Dr. George F. Kunz of New York, Professor
Moissau of Paris, and other investigators. In 1905, Moissau dissolved a
fragment of Canyon Diablo weighing several pounds, and obtained not only
recognizable crystals of the diamond, but also crystals of a mineral
corresponding exactly in composition to the extremely hard artificial
silicide of carbon known as carborundum. The new mineral has been named
Moissauite, and this is the first time that it has been found in nature.
Geology teaches us not only that charcoal and the mineral coals are
different forms of that wonderful element we call carbon, but also that
bituminous and anthracite coals are the transformed products of ancient
vegetation, through the combined agencies of heat, enormous pressure,
and the slow transmuting effect of ages. This talismanic element is ever
found associated in some form with organic substance, and organic
substance is life substance, animal as well as vegetable.
Hence comes the all-engrossing conclusion that wherever carbon exists
there organic matter exists or has existed; and, if organic matter, then
its essential companion life! Does the meteoric fragment Canyon Diablo,
which fell from the sky upon our planet, come from a world now or at one
time the abode of life? Seemingly, we have drifted back to the original
argument, Did life first come to this earth in a meteor? and we are no
nearer a solution of the problem unless—as some one facetiously
remarked, an enterprising individual inclosed a message within a meteor
ere it took its departure for our planet from some distant world. As
Flammarion says in his book on _The Plurality of Worlds_: “The problem
remains the same. We want to know how life first appeared, and this
problem has not been advanced in the slightest degree by the theory
adopted by Lord Kelvin and Arrhenius.” But, as already stated, no one
dreamed of taking the suggestion made by Lord Kelvin, seriously.